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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419501">all for love after all</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembermyfic/pseuds/remembermyfic'>remembermyfic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Hockey RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AAG!Jack Eichel, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Not a hockey player, F/M, Grad School Student Jack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:33:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembermyfic/pseuds/remembermyfic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Listen,” he says and he has that tone in his voice right before he tells the media that he’ll always have the backs of his teammates. “I don’t ask you to come to these things for appearances. You know that, right?”</p><p>Chalk another very embarrassing point to Jack and her uncanny ability to misunderstand.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Eichel/Connor McDavid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all for love after all</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you know the people, hit the little red button. </p><p>This is K's fault. It's also from 2019. Errors are mine, I did not reread to correct. </p><p>If you think something should be tagged that isn't a spoiler, let me know.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Literally why.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack falls back on the couch, the couch that Connor picked out because it was comfortable to take naps on and he knew she’d need it - hashtag grad school life - when this whole farce had started. The sigh that blows out of her mouth is gusty enough that she hears it as feedback.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just a show.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jacqueline Eichel-” Jessie starts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not even my name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“- it may have started fake, but that boy cares for you. He wants you there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He expected me to go. He didn’t even ask, Jess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So he’s dumb. You knew that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s no excuse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jessie is silent. Jack’s right, they both know it. Connor should have asked, not stepped into their room a week ago to ask when she was packing for Las Vegas. He’s goddamn lucky she didn’t throw a shoe at him, or worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack swallows. It’s not easy. She hates it, really. She’s across the continent, watching him give bland, awkward smiles, knowing he’s not going to win the awards he deserves because the Tampa Bay Lightning were a glitch that lasted a whole season. And wearing the pants she absolutely fucking hates, and seriously considered burning. She would not have let him out of the hotel room in those. A fucking tie for a belt. A shoelace for a belt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You miss him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack hates that tears well in her eyes. Jessie’s the only one who knows, on her side. Jessie and Cam, the trusted secret keeper witnesses to a wedding that gave Jack so much more freedom and gave Connor an excuse to bow out, to go home early, to get some goddamn sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But at the end of the day, Jessie’s also right. She does miss Connor, even if he needs to goddamn learn he can’t just expect her to drop everything for his shit. It doesn’t matter if it’s the last game of the season, if it’s the playoffs, she’s a student. She has deadlines. And she deserves her own life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know what he promised me? The night of the wedding?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jessie makes a noise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That I’d always have a choice. That he’d never box me into being a hockey wife. That he understood grad school was important to me - is important to me. He broke that promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jessie’s quiet for long enough that Jack seriously worries she’s hung up on her. Eventually though, she says, “I think maybe it’s time to stop looking at your life and his life as separate things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack hangs up.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She watches the awards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is weird to see him on television without someone at his side, she’ll admit that much. She’ll also admit, to the privacy of herself and the condo walls, that she’s glad he didn’t have anyone else. The family is there, Jack knows, because Kelly had chattered excitedly about how they were all going to sit together, and celebrate afterwards, before she found out Jack wasn’t going. It’s not Kelly’s fault their entire marriage is a sham.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not Kelly’s fault that there are times Jack really wishes it weren’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jessie’s words ping pong through her head for hours. Jack has been treating them as separate entities that sometimes have time for each other. But she’s also the woman that misses him when the bed is empty, tells him that she’s not sure she’ll ever finish this degree because theses are fucking hard, and actually listens when he tells her that she’ll finish it, no matter what, because the only barrier out there is Jack herself. She lets him make her believe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She also spends three hours getting progressively angrier and angrier. Minus the moment Barry Trotz wins, because it’s physically impossible to hate Barry Trotz. By the time the awards have ended, she’s livid, and she doesn’t think twice about picking up the phone. He’ll pick up. He always does. She can count on him for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s still first in her favourites.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jack?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was three hours of fucking bullshit,” she explodes. “Do the writers even know what the awards are for? Do they know the definitions? I’ll let the Barkov thing go, even though they should be renaming the Selke to the Bergeron award, but the Hart? Fuck that, Connor. Kucherov is not more valuable to his team than you are to yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s an amazing player.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, fine, I respectfully disagree for right now, but that doesn’t negate my original point. If they wanted the best player of the year or whatever, they should have a Gretzky award, not the Hart. The Hart is for, and I quote, the player most valuable to his team. That’s you every goddamn year.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s on a roll now, can feel the blood boiling. “I’m so mad. Remember the year you broke your collarbone? The team was in shambles wasn’t it. Because you weren’t fucking there. And I’m so mad I’m not there because I would have stomped up on that stage and demanded a recount for all of the writers with the correct definition of the award because how the hell it isn’t you every year is wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s silence where all she can hear is her heaving breath. Then, “I wish you were here, too, Jack. I really fucking wish you were here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The anger drains out of her too fast. It leaves her shaking as she falls back to the sofa, body aching with a million things she wants to say. It still takes her more than a few beats before she can summon the will to say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s another pause. “For the awards?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closes her eyes against the caution in his voice. She did this to him. She made him wary by lashing out, but protecting herself, but convincing herself that it was what she had to do to keep her heart safe. She’d hurt herself instead, and hurt him in the process.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For not being there,” she finally says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a gust of air, then simply, “Thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels unfinished. Jack can feel everything crawling up her throat, clawing to get out. It’s not enough. It doesn’t feel anywhere near enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen,” he says and he has that tone in his voice right before he tells the media that he’ll always have the backs of his teammates. “I don’t ask you to come to these things for appearances. You know that, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack stays suspiciously silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor grunts. “I don’t ask you to come to things for the looks and the perception. It’s worse with you not here; people are asking where you are on a night that’s like, the second biggest in the NHL after the awarding of the Stanley Cup. And the league’s best player - which is essentially what you just called me - is alone when everyone knows I have a wife. That part sucks, sure, but that’s not the worst part.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She says nothing, struck speechless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The worst part is that I want you here and you’re not here. I want you here because I know all night you would have been whispering little barbs in my ear, quoting </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mighty Ducks</span>
  </em>
  <span> because Keenan Thompson was the host. We would have gotten ready together, had dinner with my family, and I wouldn’t feel like there are a million better things to do because the person I want to do them with isn’t sitting next to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Connor-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jack.” A beat. “I love you. I really love you, and that means wanting to do these things together, not for the image, but because I genuinely want to spend time with you, and hear your witty chirps, and hold your hand when you’re so angry it looks like you’re going to get up on that stage yourself to personally wring someone’s neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I miss you here, now, after all of this when I have no award, and no wife with me, and the most exciting thing I have to look forward to are the admittedly excellent waffles at tomorrow’s breakfast spread.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have a diet plan,” she murmurs, but she knows it’s too affectionate to pass as anything stern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you and I miss you. That’s what it comes down to, Jack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gives herself a few breaths to figure out what she wants to say next. “I’m sorry,” she finally settles on. “It’s not enough, but I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The inadequacy of it makes her eyes sting. She’s aware her Achilles heel is her pride. It always has been, but here it feels worse. Here it feels like the world’s biggest weakness and it’s doing nothing but hurting them both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says finally, and she’s both grateful and stung that he doesn’t follow that up with a placating statement. There’s a few painful seconds before he says, “I’ll see you at home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” she says firmly and wishes she felt like he believed her.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t sleep. She’s exhausted, emotionally wrung out, and still, she does not sleep. It’s all running around in her head, his words and her reaction and a whole year of both. The slideshow of their lives does not turn out in her favor and it hurts her more than she’ll ever admit. He hasn’t been perfect, for sure, but when she thinks about it, she definitely comes out more tarnished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s up too early, and at Pearson long before she needs to be. He’d texted when he’d left, flight number like he always does. She tracks it, bouncing on her toes, weirdly anxious. She wants him to be happy to see her, she realizes. She wants him to smile when he sees her there, and hates that she’s pretty sure he won’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She waits and waits and waits, then sees a familiar body, dressed down in khaki shorts and a plain t-shirt. She doesn’t square her shoulders, but it’s a close thing as she heads for him, cuts him off so he has to run into her. He does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry I-“ Then he catches sight of exactly who he’d run into. Jack will absolutely accept being wrong as a smile spreads across his face. “Hi.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” she manages back, around the lump in her throat. This still feels tenuous. “How was your flight?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor reaches out, the same way he always has, a little in awe of her existence. God, he’s always looked at her like that, at least long enough that she should have known. She’ll never take it for granted again. She swears on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” he says again, and Jack is shockingly unsurprised at the reckless way he leans in to kiss her. She can’t even be self-conscious about it, not really, even in the middle of Pearson freaking airport, where he must get recognized every damn day, yet he’s too caught up in her to care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Never will she ever take him for granted. Not after this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He presses his forehead to hers when he finally decides he’s done for now, suitcase forgotten at his feet. “I missed you. Holy fuck, Jack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” she says, in the middle of fucking Pearson International Airport of all places. But it bubbles up in her, uncontainable. “I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” Even Connor’s breathless, eyes so bright, like there’s no better gift she could have given him. He’s had her heart for so long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her laugh is awkward to say the least, a little incredulous because how is that even a question he’s asking her right now? “Yeah. Fuck, yes, Connor, yes. I’m in love with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His smile is the wide ugly one she only sees when he’s really grinning. “I love you, too.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
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